'Burnt' debris can suggest MH370 plane suffered fire damage

5 pieces of the debris discovered by American independent investigator Blaine Gibson were handed over to the ATSB

Newly found debris, suspected to be that of Malaysian Airlines MH370 has burn marks, suggesting that a fire broke out on the plane before it vanished mysteriously over the Indian Ocean in 2014, according to media reports.

The five pieces of the debris discovered by American independent investigator Blaine Gibson were handed over to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) in Canberra on Monday, over two-and-a-half years after the plane carrying 239 people, including five Indians, disappeared.

The ATSB has previously analysed several pieces of debris and concluded that four of them were "almost certainly" from the missing plane.

Gibson, has previously found other pieces of the debris of the Boeing 777 that were confirmed to be from MH370, the Guardian reported.

"If they are confirmed as MH370 and if the fire was before the crash, this is significant evidence of what caused the plane's demise," Gibson said.

Gibson, whose private search is self-funded, described the items as shattered composite panels with hexagonal honeycombing inside. Both had evidence of blackened singeing and burning to off-white paint on both sides.

He said he believed the parts were likely to be from an internal section of the plane, such as the cabin or cargo area, rather than a structural piece involved in flying, such as the wing.

However, he warned it was too early to draw firm conclusions - or even to know if the debris is from the missing MH370 plane.

The parts, found by a local fisherman in southeast Madagascar, near Sainte-Luce, could have been burned after the crash once they washed ashore, he said.

In July last year, a flaperon was found on Reunion Island off the coast of Madagascar. It was the first piece to be formally identified as part of the MH370 wreckage.

Flight MH370 went missing on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with available data indicating that the plane flew into the waters of the southern Indian Ocean.

More than 1,10,000 sq km of the seafloor have been searched so far for clues to or debris of the missing jetliner.